We all know about Him. There is no person in the world who has not remembered His name in prayer, in the heat of the moment, or just by word of mouth. Opponents and supporters, haters and admirers crowd around Him. He gained immense popularity, but they also boo Him mercilessly. And many claim to have met Him in person and even had exclusive conversations.
For thousands of years people have been composing His portrait, analyzing and interpreting His actions. They approve, condemn, praise, curse, and most importantly, tirelessly pray, in the confidence that He can and wants to answer these prayers. And yet, in spite of everything, He still remains in the shadows - the greatest mystery of history.
Idolaters
Already in ancient times, various cultures were formed around the idea that behind all natural phenomena, a divine force is hidden, which pulls the strings. Wind, rain, earth, fire - everything was labeled with the name of a particular deity. In an attempt to appease the idols or soften their anger, sacrifices of various kinds, including human ones, were made.
In ancient Greece, a whole mythology developed around polytheism with a rich gallery of brightly outlined characters and breathtaking plots. The inhabitants of Olympus possessed supernatural powers and lived forever, but human weaknesses were not alien to them. They loved and hated, envied and sympathized, just like people.
v These characters, as well as the stories about them, were later borrowed by the Romans and, together with the traditional Italian deities, became the basis of ancient mythology. However, time passed, and gradually new forces were ripening in ancient society, foreshadowing the decline of the pantheon of gods.
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God of philosophers
In the 5th – 4th centuries BC, Greek thinkers appeared on the stage of history. They have brought some rationality and science into the traditional perception of the divine. In their writings, philosophers tried to lower the ideal hovering in the clouds on the solid ground of common sense.
Plato's theory of ideas has had a huge impact on Western thought. Instead of a spiritual essence, Plato introduced a more abstract concept called "idea" or "form". In his opinion, behind every object and phenomenon of reality there is a corresponding idea, which is the root cause.
Aristotle, by contrast, took a more materialistic approach to the kingdom of heaven. The idea, he believed, is intertwined with matter. This is not an abstract substance, not ether, the emanations of which animate our reality, but an attribute of matter itself. Man is a part of nature, endowed with a certain amount of intelligence. And what is perceived through the five senses is the world.
Aristotelian God was artificially deduced from logical reasoning, and was not born of a truly spiritual necessity. Since any movement in our "despicable" world has a specific cause, Aristotle called the cause of all causes a "motionless mover" or "prime mover".
Breaking idols
Long before the events described above, in the second millennium BC, the ancient Babylonian civilization was the center of idolatry. It was there, in the glorious city of Ur, that Abraham, the founder of monotheism, was born. He discovered that the world is governed by one, the only, higher spiritual force, abstracted from the material "entourage" and inaccessible to ordinary human perception.
Abraham taught his disciples, who became the basis of the Jewish people, the method of cognizing this single power - Kabbalah. And the meaning of the existence of the Jews - the people of Israel - is to convey this knowledge to all peoples of the world.
“This people constantly lived in a sense of the spiritual world. But with the collapse of the Second Temple, it completely disappeared, and the whole people fell to the level of simple religion "(Baal HaSulam," Preface to the Teaching of the Ten Sefirot ").
Subsequently, Christianity and Islam, as well as various beliefs and sects, "branched off" from Judaism. They took the principles of Abraham's teaching as a basis, but added to them some "modifications" to adapt to their needs.
Nails in a coffin
Over time, Western philosophers tore the umbilical cord that connected them to the Greek ancestors. New philosophical "excavations" began, or rather, digging under the idea of the Almighty, who sits on his throne somewhere, in the heights of the universe.
In the 16th century, Copernicus fired a “test shot” at the Divine concept, proving that the same physical laws operate on earth and in heaven. He placed the Sun at the center of the world, and rationalism at the center of the human worldview.
Copernicus' baton was immediately taken up by other philosophers and scientists. The famous Baruch Spinoza - not only excommunicated from the Jewish community, but also contributing to the discontent of the Christian Church - developed an immanent pantheism. Simply put, he identified God with nature and relegated the mysterious higher spheres to the category of completely natural laws that lend themselves to scientific research.
And in the 18th century, Kant appeared and with the hammer of his "Criticism" drove the first large nail into the lid of the sacred coffin. According to Kant, divinity is nothing more than speculation, an unprovable hypothesis, for the validity of which we can only hope.
Karl Marx was quick to join the funeral service for the Divine Idea and on a grand scale hammered the second nail, declaring that God is just the personification of human properties, along with capital contributing to the enslavement and exploitation of people. "Opium for the people" - summed up the founder of communism.
But the ideal was knocked out by Friedrich Nietzsche. It was he who put into the mouth of his hero Zarathustra the so often quoted phrase: “Is it possible? This holy old man in his forest has not yet heard that God is dead?"
Revival
In the 20th century, the new-old approach to the Divine idea again attracted attention and created numerous adherents. People began to wonder more and more about what is hidden behind the scenes of reality. To understand the meaning of life, or at least "connect" to its spiritual component - this desire gave rise to a real wave of teachings and methods that tried to give an answer to the imperative inside.
This is how the "new age" movement appeared, which united a whole spectrum of mystical trends, which, as a rule, relied on ancient beliefs extracted from forgotten crypts. Humanity has been desperately trying to assemble a divine model in the postmodern style.
After many years of exile, the image of God once again took center stage on the stage of Western culture, and it even seemed that He had finally awakened from hibernation caused by the cold winter wind of human contempt and indifference …
Modern man has rejected rigid religious canons and at the same time has become disillusioned with science with its wide possibilities within the framework of a narrow specialization. A new surge of mysticism became an outlet for some time, but did we get real answers from it? Rather, on the contrary, he is all permeated with mysteries and vague promises.
The more “prophets” broadcast from the self-made tribunes, the thicker the fog that shrouds the Divine idea. Whom to believe? Who to believe in? And should I believe?
Go and look
“One thought created our entire reality, all the higher and the lower, up to the universal final correction. This single thought is the source and essence of all actions. It sets the goal and it gives meaning to the effort. She herself is reality - perfection and long-awaited reward”(Baal HaSulam,“Teaching of the Ten Sefirot”).
Kabbalah does not engage in abstract ideas, and even less does it try to embody Divinity in the image of a person of flesh and blood. Kabbalists speak of the Creator as the law of absolute love or as a thought that embraces all parts of reality and leads us to perfection.
The creator in Hebrew is Bore. This word is decomposed into two: "bo" and "re" - go and see. This is not just a hint, but an invitation addressed to everyone: go and check for yourself.
Uncover the Higher Power by yourself through deep and comprehensive research. Indeed, in everything that concerns the disclosure of the highest law, one cannot be satisfied with partial information, conjectures and speculations. Full comprehension of the Creator by heart and mind is necessary - no less.
Sounds overly ambitious? Kabbalists don't think so. Indeed, how can we remain in the dark about what determines our entire life?
Having walked the path into which the Creator, or the Higher Nature, invites us, we will discover in ourselves a true picture of reality and understand that perfection is infinite love that does not know hatred, not distorted by the tricks of egoism.
To cognize the Creator means to “rise” above oneself now. If something prevents us from moving to the next stage of development, it is ourselves. Significant hints and highly moral notations will not give meaning to our efforts. Satisfied with them, we still do not want to change our nature, or rather, get rid of a totally egoistic perception of reality.
Only those who look at everything with new eyes will see a new world. Do you want to know what God looks like? Go and look.
Ilya Vinokur